Michael Gove – 2010 Comments on Education Policy

The comments made by Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, on 24 November 2010.

Many other countries in the world are improving their schools faster than us and have smaller gaps between the achievements of rich and poor. The very best performing education systems have a rigorous focus on high standards, a determination to narrow attainment gaps and have stretching curricula. The countries that come out top of international studies into educational performance recognise that the most crucial factor in determining how well children do at school is the quality of their teachers.

The best education systems draw their teachers from among the top graduates and train them rigorously, focusing on classroom practice. They recognise that it is teachers’ knowledge, intellectual depth and love of their subject which stimulates the imagination of children and allows them to flourish and succeed.

But for too long in our country, teachers and heads have been hamstrung by bureaucracy and left without real support.

It’s shocking that the latest figures show that only 40 of the 80,000 children in England eligible for free school meals secured places at Oxford or Cambridge. That’s a scandal.

That’s why the coalition government plans to recruit more great people into teaching, train our existing teachers better and free them from bureaucracy and Whitehall control.

We are putting teachers in the driving seat of school improvement and we are setting out changes that will make schools more accountable to their communities and their parents.